Its called the Kate effect. It means that anything she is seen wearing is a sure-fire sellout within hours of its public appearance. Those who know her wardrobe in advance can reap millions. Now, they royal couple can be wheeled out to pacify the citizenry in the wake of riots. Her snap-up-able wearable fashions, such as $500 dresses are exactly the type of merchandise that is plum pickings for rioters: high end and accessible for people trying to emulate the style. Also she doesn’t wear vintage. Everything is current and can be quickly diluted into cheap chic reproductions at Target. The visit to rioted sections of Birmingham seemed more about what she wore and who it was made by than the actual goodwill gesture:
Cindy Sherman for MAC cosmetics---Black:Yet now we have the ludicrous spectacle of the Israeli urban lower-middle classes noisily prosecuting an incongruous mélange of complaints, from the political and economic over-indulgence of the aforementioned special-interest communities (not unfounded grievances) to a sentimental idealization of the time when most Israelis lived communally in kibbutzes, driving ploughs with rifles slung over their backs. These are not violent demonstrations. But Israelis can vote, and that would be a better way to express complaints than through the destabilization of their democracy in this manner. This trend toward rioting and mob political movements will lead to cavernous problems if is not arrested. We can take inspiration from Japan, where almost none of any of this occurs. Read More:http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/08/20/conrad-black-looters-and-rioters-are-a-threat-to-civilization/ image:http://www.hintmag.com/post/cindy-sherman-macs-new-cover-girl--july-28-2011-1718
…For an official visit to Birmingham today, Kate wore another Sarah Burton design.Known for fondness of recycling outfits, she this time opted for brand new attire. Although Kate once favoured British label Issa, it is clear McQueen is now at the top of her list. The brunette wore a navy blue £580 pencil skirt with gold button detailing teamed with a matching £795 cream blouse from the current collection.Both items are available to buy online and it is surely only a matter of hours before they sell out. Kate did however slip into blue Prada court shoes seen before during her trip to the U.S and Canada…. Read More:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2027967/Duchess-Cambridge-Kate-Middleton-wears-Sarah-Burton-design-riot-visits.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
---from the Canadian tour: ...While some labeled her outfit choices over the weekend 'boring', Kate's samey style is what will ultimately ensure her iconic status. Speaking about the grey Catherine Walker dress Kate wore on Saturday, associate fashion news editor at Canadian fashion magazine Flare Mosha Lundstrom Halbert said: 'I wanted to see her step it up in terms of the fashion quotient, and she didn't do that today.' Although she has never been seen in a pair of highly coveted Christian Louboutin shoes, or sporting a weighty Hermes Birkin on her arm, Kate still has the ability to shift thousands of copies of a simple Zara dress. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2011064/How-Kate-Middleton-single-handedly-changing-face-fashion.html image:http://photogallery.thestar.com/1041951
According to any analysis, riots can be seen as a more or less recurrent,continuous , if unpredictable, feature of social life.And have been so documented since Roman times. And the rioters almost always gain, especially in the short-term. But is it politics that drives the show? Probably. Here Kate and William, symbols of class divide, wealth, income disparity, white privilege and private property come hand in hand on a mission of reconciliation. Look, pinching a flat screen is just a desire to have access to consumer society. Why should they be different? A riot is not an articulated demand, but it is political. The social inequalities, austerity, political marginalization mixed racial tension and bingo. Total helplessness in dealing with British wealth divide and the limited merit-based philosophy resulted in this Schelling incident.
Cindy Sherman for MAC cosmetics. ---Late on Monday night, news went round Twitter that Turkish shopkeepers on Stoke Newington Road in Dalston were fighting off the marauders with baseball bats, and someone tweeted: "Bloody immigrants. Coming over here, defending our boroughs & communities." And it struck me that it hadn't occurred to me to walk on to my high street and see what was going on, let alone defend anything. I was watching events on a live feed, switching between Sky and the BBC, thinking how interesting it was, even though it was audible from my front door and at one point, when I couldn't tell whether the helicopter noise was coming from the telly or from real life, it was because it was both.---Read More:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/09/uk-riots-psychology-of-looting image:http://www.hintmag.com/post/cindy-sherman-macs-new-cover-girl--july-28-2011-1718
…Store managers hold daily staff meetings to discuss local trends, and this information is fed back to headquarters, in Galicia, northern Spain. In fact, the week before the Royal wedding, a Zara manager spotted the then Ms Middleton trying on a dress, and alerted the shop’s parent company. Kate was later photographed wearing the dress the day after the wedding. Staff at Inditex headquarters were prepared for the resulting stampede of shoppers seeking the same item. Read More:http://blog.freedmaninternational.com/zaras-strategy-for-efficient-global-marketing-and-kate-middleton/7545/
Hitchens:Still, this leaves open the question of why so many British people also enjoy battering and maiming strangers, destroying or damaging landmark buildings (probably without knowing that that’s what they are), and pretending to come to the aid of wounded foreign tourists, the better to lift things from their backpacks.
There are two unhelpful approaches to this, the first of them based on the assumption — still very widespread in the American press — that there is something essentially un-English about gratuitous violence. A second approach makes the opposite emphasis and consists of saying, in effect, look up your Dickens and your Mayhew and your Engels: The London of a few generations ago was a scene of mob rule as well as class rule. Life was cheap, justice was expensive; nobody was more cruel to children than the English; and no peaceful citizen was safe from the footpad, the highwayman and the pickpocket.Read More:http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/08/19/christopher-hitchens-the-english-tradition-of-gratuitous-violence/
…who has frequently been pictured wearing items from upmarket retailers Reiss and Whistles. These brands are at the top of the UK fashion chain, and via the “Kate Middleton effect”, consumers are expected to make a shift toward the pricier end of the high street. The £399 Issa dress that Kate Middleton wore in her engagement photo was an instant sell-out, for instance….
---And since the wedding, Kate fever shows no sign of dying out. Not that we suggest it should, we’re big fans of her chic, understated style, as epitomised on the weekend for her day at the races. Kate looked gorgeous sporting a chiffon dress by Reiss, covered with a Chanel-like waffle jacket by Joseph, nude patent LK Bennett pumps and a diamante-encrusted clutch bag, again by LK Bennett, as she joined the crowds at Epsom Downs Racecourse. Cue websites of the respective brands jamming as fashion lovers jump online to emulate the look at the height of wedding/races/garden party sea
There’s no denying Kate, with all those royal appointments, is the queen of occasionwear and handily for her followers, high street (albeit high end), British occasionwear. Read More :http://www.walesonline.co.uk/showbiz-and-lifestyle/showbiz/2011/06/07/why-kate-middleton-s-safe-look-is-doing-wonders-for-affordable-british-fashion-91466-28831242/
…Premium fashion is expected to enjoy the strongest growth in the clothing sector, increasing 29% over the next three years, and the wider clothing sector is expected to report 9% real growth. These figures represent a change in consumer behaviours: now the trend is to buy fewer, higher value items, and an ageing population places more emphasis on quality and service than price.
The domino effect of Kate Middleton wearing popular, yet recognisable as being the upper-end of the high street fashion, clothes, is an example of Thetas following and making up the crowd. Here is a woman who will be the future Queen of England, who represents the modernisation of the English monarchy, who is wearing clothes that any person may wear. Taking part in this fashion trend is all about taking part in a piece of English history. Read More:http://www.janusthinking.com/2011/03/the-kate-middleton-effect/
Conrad Black:Of course, society has always been burdened by louts and unreasonable malcontents, but they have proliferated because of the Western habit of providing a guaranteed income to everyone through the welfare system. This, to many, incentivizes idleness, which, in the case of ignorant people, often leads to violence, as a reaction to unbroken indolence.The problem was severely aggravated in all Western countries by the erosion of families and the schools. And in the United States, the Great Society welfare programs of president Lyndon Johnson inadvertently rewarded welfare addiction and single motherhood. Read More:http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/08/20/conrad-black-looters-and-rioters-are-a-threat-to-civilization/
ADDENDUM:
British designer Vivienne Westwood recently criticised the Duchess for her beauty routine, telling The Sunday Times she ‘has a problem with eye make-up. ‘The sharp line around her eyes make her look hard. Either she should be smudgy or wear none.’ Kellly Osbourne slammed Kate for repeating outfits on Jay Leno, claiming ‘If I had that job I would only wear (the coat) once. ‘I’m not going to wear that dress once because I’m giving up the rest of my life.’
---Not so, says Clifford Stott, a professor of psychology at the University of Liverpool who specializes in crowd behaviour and riots. In the wake of the recent London events, dispelling old myths about crowd psychology has kept Stott quite busy. He says the so-called mob mentality has been rejected by psychological literature for well over 30 years. Instead, psychologists today see crowd behaviour as the result of people taking on a shared social identity. "So (people are) no longer acting in terms of their individual identity but they haven't lost their identity altogether, they've just refocused on a common group membership," said Stott. Such groups form when individuals feel they are in a similar position in relation to other groups. Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Anatomy+riot/5281541/story.html#ixzz1VicibGVj image:http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Anatomy+riot/5281541/story.html
Actress Anne Hathaway however defended Kate, praising her for ‘dressing like a lady’. It seems whatever Kate does, a debate will swiftly ensue.And with the recent release of a Kate doll, she will now be a permanent fixture in people’s homes. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2027967/Duchess-Cambridge-Kate-Middleton-wears-Sarah-Burton-design-riot-visits.html#ixzz1ViQkmWBo
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A cook in an organic restaurant, a graphic designer, an 11 year-old boy. The people behind the London riots often aren’t whom you’d expect them to be. Many of those charged boast a clean rap sheet and don’t seem to have much of a reason to be taking part in the unrest. “One was the daughter of a millionaire, some people were fully employed and came home from work, hung up their work clothes, changed into their hoodies and went off to rob shops,” said Angela Ford-Rosenthal, a Concordia University sociology professor who was in London visiting family when the riots broke out.So why were these people ready to risk everything? They weren’t all protesting the shooting of Mark Duggan, says Ford-Rosenthal. “It was something that took on a life of its own.”Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Anatomy+riot/5281541/story.html#ixzz1VibUFxhg
Read More:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/19/riots-psychology-crowds
Zoe Williams:At the other end of the authoritarian-liberal spectrum, you have Camila Batmanghelidjh’s idea, movingly expressed in the Independent, that this is a natural human response to the brutality of poverty: “Walk on the estate stairwells with your baby in a buggy manoeuvring past the condoms, the needles, into the lift where the best outcome is that you will survive the urine stench and the worst is that you will be raped . . . It’s not one occasional attack on dignity, it’s a repeated humiliation, being continuously dispossessed in a society rich with possession. Young, intelligent citizens of the ghetto seek an explanation for why they are at the receiving end of bleak Britain, condemned to a darkness where their humanity is not even valued enough to be helped.”
Between these poles is a more pragmatic reading: this is what happens when people don’t have anything, when they have their noses constantly rubbed in stuff they can’t afford, and they have no reason ever to believe that they will be able to afford it. Hiller takes up this idea: “Consumer society relies on your ability to participate in it. So what we recognise as a consumer now was born out of shorter hours, higher wages and the availability of credit. If you’re dealing with a lot of people who don’t have the last two, that contract doesn’t work. They seem to be targeting the stores selling goods they would normally consume. So perhaps they’re rebelling against the system that denies its bounty to them because they can’t afford it.” Read More:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/09/uk-riots-psychology-of-looting
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